Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Part 22

"Thanks, Max, you're OK. Now, uh. . . . " Manny glanced over at the cl.u.s.ter of other students.

Wilde waved him away. "Off you go, Manny."

Manny grinned awkwardly, still eyeing Kendrick as if the latter were some sort of rabid animal. Then he drained his cooling coffee in one gulp and wandered off to join his fellow students, who greeted Manny with cheers and handshakes as if he had only just arrived. The realization that he had been engaged in conversation only a few tables away was completely lost on them.

"Right," Wilde said, throwing down some money and rising from his chair. "Off we go, Kendrick. Time to put the fear of Heaven into some people."

"Now you're using words I understand," Kendrick replied with a terrible smile.

The printing house of Edgewood, Franklin, and Co. was perhaps the noisiest place Wilde had ever been. From the vantage point of a second-story balcony, he watched two rows of automated printing presses rapidly turning cylinders of pulp paper into piles of broadsheets. In between, engineers in oily clothes scurried back and forth, antic.i.p.ating breakdowns and lubricating the countless moving parts. Junior clerks rushed from machine to machine, retrieving armloads of printed papers and resetting type codes. Off in rooms to either side, typists could be seen at their desks, using complicated keyboards to set the type codes for the next batch of issues.

Of course, Wilde recalled, his second-story position was an illusion. In fact, he was six floors above the street, since the room he was in rested on two identical chambers filled with printing presses and typesetters. Like many of the businesses in the City of Salmagundi, Edgewood, Franklin, and Co. had maximized their efficiency by capitalizing on vertical s.p.a.ce. Indeed, the printing house tower continued further upward with several floors of offices above the printing halls.

"Now then, gentlemen," said the upright and stern-faced Mr. Edgewood, "I expect we shall enjoy a little more privacy here than in my office. What is this 'delicate matter' you feel you must discuss with me? At the outset, I should like to remind you that we take no responsibility for the content of articles printed by our company. If you've been offended by something, you must take it up with the author."

"No, no, nothing of the sort," Wilde a.s.sured him, "but we are interested in contacting one of your authors."

"Oh, yes?" Edgewood said, his tone not altogether pleasant.

"I understand you're the printing house that works with the commentator known as Mr. Salad Monday. Is that correct?" It was a bluff, of course, but worth a try.

Edgewood studied the two men before him in silence. At length, he answered, "Very well. I don't know how you found out, but yes, he is one of our clients."

"Then I a.s.sume that your company arranges to have his papers delivered as well."

"Yes. . . " came the cautious reply.

Wilde smiled. "In that case, sir, I need to know who he is...or at least where he can be found."

Edgewood's face paled horribly, then flushed with great offense. "You expect me to give out the private address of one of our clients?"

"Yes," Wilde answered flatly. "I a.s.sure you, Mr. Edgewood, that we'll keep your involvement strictly confidential, but I need that information."

"Inspector, you don't seem to understand, so let me make this exceedingly clear to you. The anonymity of my clients is a sacred trust, as surely as if it were sworn in the presence of a priest or a magistrate. The credibility of this printing house demands that we bow to neither bribery nor intimidation, and I am not inclined to make an exception for the likes of you." He brushed at the lapels of his frock coat dismissively. "And don't try to threaten me with that policeman's nonsense of yours either. I know my rights as a taxpayer. I'm above your routine hara.s.sment. You don't even have a warrant, or else you'd have shown it to me by now."

"Mr. Edgewood, I think you're being somewhat unreasonable here. I'm asking for the address of one man."

"Principles, Inspector."

Wilde tried a different approach. Narrowing his eyes, he moved half a step closer to Edgewood than most people would have found comfortable. "I arrived without a warrant out of consideration for your reputation, Mr. Edgewood. You aren't a suspect here, so why bother with all the ribbon?" He a.s.sumed that Edgewood, like most citizens, could be brought into line by the threat of red tape.

Edgewood was unmoved. "They wouldn't give you one if you tried, Inspector. I am a taxpayer, if you recall. Go and try your strong-arm methods with those paupers down on Layer Five. I have no time for it. I expect you two can see yourselves out. Don't soil anything on your way to the door."

He turned to walk away, fingers tucked around the edges of his vest, but instead of the open walkway, he found himself confronted with Kendrick's bowler, dark suit, and quivering moustache. Without a word, Kendrick gripped Edgewood by the lapels of his coat and lifted the smaller man into the air.

"I say, how dare-" Edgewood began.

"Let's try it this way," Kendrick interrupted. "I'm going to count to ten. If you've answered the Inspector's question by then, I'll put you down. If you haven't, I'll count to ten again. If you answer by then, I'll put you down on the printing room floor," he said, nodding to the open chamber that lay a dozen feet below them. "But if you still haven't answered, I'll put you down outside the window. And we're..." he turned his head to Wilde, "what, fifty feet up?"

"More like seventy," came the deadpan reply.

"But...but. . . . " Edgewood was struggling to understand that a policeman had dared to manhandle him. "You can't do this!"

"One," Kendrick counted.

"I think you'd better do as he says," Wilde offered, with a helpless shrug.

"Two."

"But I'm a taxpayer!"

"Three."

"You're peacekeepers! You can't do this!"

"Four."

Wilde shook his head. "No, I'm a peacekeeper."

"Five."

"He's a 'Special' peacekeeper."

"Six."

"Special?" Edgewood gasped, all the more frightened that he did not understand the significance.

"Seven," Kendrick said, exchanging nods with Wilde.

"Special," Wilde confirmed.

"Eight."

The color drained from Edgewood's face, and his head snapped toward Kendrick as he struggled to say something, anything, to halt the counting. Kendrick gave the man a sympathetic smile.

"Nine."

The address belonging to the mysterious Mr. Salad Monday was a small townhouse located in of one of Layer Three's poorer neighborhoods. While hardly approaching the squalor and poverty found among the laboring cla.s.ses of the lower city, the less-affluent residents of the bourgeois Layer Three still lived in an unenviable state. Their houses were often old or run-down, and it would be dubious to claim that they were truly worth the rents they paid. But surely, the landlords insisted, the superior ambiance of the layer was more than compensation for the extra cost.

Salad Monday's townhouse was a weathered brick construction, similar to many of the neighboring buildings. It rested at the end of a long alleyway, one kept clean as much through the locals' efforts as the munic.i.p.al workers'. It seemed doubtful that the city sweeping machines could even fit down the narrow street.

The front door was locked, of course, but it was a poor Legion officer who was not a good housebreaker. The building's interior was solid but weathered, with peeling, yellowed wallpaper that no one had bothered to replace in ages. Thick sheets of dust covered everything, confirming the building's general disuse, and there were no footprints or signs of pa.s.sage to be found upon the floor, stairs, or banisters.

In the ancient foyer, Wilde glanced at Kendrick, only to see that the other man had drawn two service revolvers from inside his coat and was peering along them toward the interior of the house.

"Kendrick!"

"What?"

Wilde made a face as he led the way into the front hallway. "Put those things away."

Kendrick's eyes darted around the hallway, peering at the dim gaslamps and dusty surfaces as if they might attack at any moment. "There could be terrorists."

"Terrorists who don't leave footprints? Be sensible. Besides, if there is anyone here-which I'm beginning to doubt-it'll be a lot of idiot students, not armed men." Some distant sound caught his attention. He held up a hand for silence, ignoring the fact that he was the one speaking. "Shhh. Do you hear that?"

The two men listened for a moment. Presently they heard a noise rising up through the hallways of the house. It was the all-too-familiar sound of perhaps a dozen typewriters clacking away in unison. The clicks came from further in the house, slowly trickling along the layers of dust until it seemed they emanated from the very walls. The two officers looked about, turning this way and that as they strained to hear where the sound could be coming from.

"Well, there's clearly someone here," Wilde noted softly.

"Must be using a back entrance to avoid footprints," Kendrick agreed. He raised his pistols and began to edge along the corridor. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are probably downstairs in the cellar."

Wilde tilted his head. "Wait, Kendrick. I think it's coming from upstairs."

"Then search up there if you want," Kendrick answered, peering around a nearby corner as if he expected hordes of terrorists to be lying in wait. "I say it's the cellar, and that's where I'm going."

Wilde knew better than to argue. As Kendrick disappeared in search of the cellar door, Wilde made for the stairway. The sound of typing was clearer on the second floor, and clearer still as Wilde climbed upward toward the third. The rooms on this floor bore the only signs of habitation; for though there was no activity, they were filled to bursting with piles and piles of newspapers, broadsheets, chapbooks, and other printed materials. The heaps of paper had been neatly placed in some sort of complex order, but nothing had been done to protect them from moths and insects. Many of the papers had been partly devoured by whatever loathsome vermin infested the house.

He exited the room. Dust was everywhere, as thickly layered as on the first-floor, but in the hallway Wilde noticed some curious trails upon the ground. Here and there the dust had been disturbed in narrow, twisting lines. Wilde knelt to study these, but he could make nothing of them. They clearly led up and down the stairs in the direction of the front door, but what they were or what they signified remained unknown. If anything, it seemed like someone had trailed the tips of feathers through the dust.

The stairs continued upward to a single attic door. Just upon the threshold, the typewriter clacking was incredibly loud. Wilde felt a shiver descend along his back. There was no reason for fear-the typists were, no doubt, only foolish students who would be as likely to run or beg mercy as fight-but Wilde's instinct for danger was still working full-time. Reaching for the handle, Wilde eased the door open and stepped into the room beyond. He did not immediately understand what it was that he saw.

The room was larger than it appeared from outside, for it stretched almost the full length and breadth of the house. The peaked ceiling was exceedingly high, and from it hung a series of burning lamps that kept the attic s.p.a.ce bright enough for typing. Piles of printed broadsheets littered the floor. A number of tables had been placed about the center of the room in a rough circular shape, and they were covered variously by stacks of blank paper, typing ribbon, and easily a dozen typewriters. There were no chairs in front of the tables, a point which at first confused Wilde. He was likewise bewildered by the room's clear desolation: there was no one to be seen anywhere. And yet the typewriters were clicking away still, as if driven by the hands of ghosts. At first, Wilde thought the machines might be automated, but he could see no punchcard reader to direct them, nor steam lines to power them.

As Wilde approached the typewriters, he became aware of certain peculiar details that he had not initially noticed. It seemed as if a series of silken streamers had been hung from the ceiling over each keyboard, yet if the tendrils were cloth or thread, they must have been waxed to give them that unthinkable glisten. There was a l.u.s.ter to them, yet at the same time they were all but translucent. They seemed more mirage than substance and were a curious iridescent color, an impossible mixture of blue, violet, turquoise, and magenta. The tendrils all seemed to drift and float through one another like trailing strings of light, yet they were somehow responsible for the movement of the typewriter keys.

Wilde's eyes followed the fantastically colored lines upward toward the peak of the roof, where they joined together into a layered ma.s.s of themselves. This "body," if such a term could be applied to it, was something akin to a pile of translucent gelatin, with lines and layers too numerous for the eye to understand. In some parts of the floating ma.s.s there were strange concentrations of light. These, Wilde suddenly realized, were eyes. Each was fixed diligently upon the typewriter below it, though they were all clearly working independently of one another. As Wilde watched, a collection of tendrils paused in their typing and reached out to a pile of broadsheets. The paper drifted toward the underside of the floating ma.s.s, and the folds of the vibrantly colored dome pulled back to reveal a series of things that might have been mouths, or mandibles, or complex beaks. These began to devour the printed newspaper hungrily.

Wilde stood rooted to the spot, gazing in fear and rapture at the floating thing. He was too good a policeman to simply dismiss the sight outright, but his mind worked double-time to find some comfortable explanation that could make sense of the combination of place, time, and creature. It was tempting to think that the creature's presence might be some terrible coincidence-that it had happened along and eaten the house's occupant moments before Wilde's arrival-but the most impossible answer was also the simplest: the floating ma.s.s of tentacles and iridescence must be Mr. Salad Monday.

As he stood and watched the creature devour its meal of decaying broadsheets, Wilde's first realization was followed by another. It was all to do with paper. The heaps and piles of paper scattered throughout the house were not simply pieces of a decaying archive. They were both food and entertainment. There was little doubt that Salad Monday the tatter enjoyed the challenge of typewritten argument, but it seemed that Salad Monday the monster also enjoyed the pages upon which the arguments were delivered.

In spite of himself, Wilde coughed. One cl.u.s.ter of lights rolled through the curious ma.s.s to fix its gaze upon the intruder. These stared at Wilde for a moment, twitching monstrously as they tried to bring him into focus. Then another set joined them, then another. Soon it seemed that all of the dreadful eyes had migrated to one section of the body and were staring at the solitary figure below. The dangling tendrils ceased their typing, and the room fell silent. Wilde licked his lips and realized that he could not seem to raise his pistol. He stared at the creature's eyes and saw in them what might have been hunger or malice or fear.

Then, without a moment's warning, Salad Monday's tendrils quivered and tucked themselves up beneath the folds of its floating body. The ma.s.s of color rippled violently, and suddenly it was gone, vanishing upward into the dark rafters. As Wilde stared, he thought he could see hints of movement pa.s.s through the blackness above the lamps and toward the far end of the attic.

A moment later the door burst open behind Wilde, and Kendrick rushed in with his revolvers raised. "You're right, Wilde!" he cried. "Cellar's emp-" Kendrick paused for a moment as he saw the array of now-vacant typewriters. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" he cried. "Don't worry, Wilde, we'll find the b.u.g.g.e.rs. They can't have gone far." And with that, Kendrick bolted across the room and into a back hallway, ignoring completely the floor's lack of footprints or signs of human pa.s.sage.

"Kendrick, wait!" Wilde shouted. His words fell on disinterested ears. Kendrick's blood was up, and he was too hot on the chase to bother with details such as who he was chasing or where they had gone.

Kendrick searched around in the moldering dimness of the attic for a few minutes, overturning piles of paper and kicking at bits of rubbish that lay long abandoned upon the floor. Finding no students or terrorists hiding in the shadows, he flung open an exterior door on the other side of the attic and dashed outside.

"They've gone for the rooftops, Wilde!" he shouted. "C'mon, we'll catch them in no time!"

Wilde watched in silence as Kendrick dashed off on his mad chase. Shaking his head, Wilde began to walk toward the outside door, thinking that he ought to catch Kendrick up before the other inspector ran too far afield.

A strange rush above his head drove Wilde to glance upward, and he caught a glimpse of luminescence pa.s.s along the spine of the ceiling. Turning, he saw the strange lines and colors of Salad Monday hovering above the circle of typewriters. The creature had given the illusion of departure, then sought to backtrack toward the stairs.

"Cunning devil..." Wilde murmured.

Salad Monday's tentacles extended downward in cl.u.s.ters and began to wrap around a couple of the typewriters. Wilde watched in confusion, uncertain what was being done. The typewriters were slowly raised into the air, held beneath Salad Monday's quivering multi-colored ma.s.s with the care of a mother cradling a child.

Not sure what to do, Wilde extended a hand and called out to the floating shape. "Stop!"

Salad Monday shook in surprise, and its bright eyes darted through its body and cl.u.s.tered on the side that faced Wilde. The creature began to edge back toward the staircase, behaving less like a ravening monster and more like a frightened animal.

"Stop!" Wilde repeated, slowly advancing to match Salad Monday's pace. "Can you understand me?"

Salad Monday shivered slightly, but there was some sense of comprehension in the brightness of its eyes.

"I'm from the Legion of Peace," Wilde continued, keeping his voice level. "Do you understand?" He motioned to himself. "Police." He took a few more careful steps forward. "I know who you are. You're Mr. Salad Monday, aren't you?"

Wilde had hoped this p.r.o.nouncement would help to set Salad Monday at ease, by acknowledging the creature as something with an ident.i.ty rather than some unthinking monster. Instead, as the name was uttered, Salad Monday drew itself up, eyes shining with the same terror that it had shown when Wilde first arrived. With barely a moment's hesitation, Salad Monday rippled like a sheet in the wind and dove down the stairs with tremendous speed.

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" Wilde swore, dashing after the receding shape.

He scrambled down the dusty stairs to the third floor, head turning this way and that as he tried to keep sight of Salad Monday. He caught a glimpse of the creature on the way to the second floor, but it was a fleeting one. Continuing downward, Wilde's feet struck a smooth patch on one of the steps and he lost his balance. His head struck the wooden boards with a painful smack, and he lay in a daze for a moment.

Shaking his head, Wilde pulled himself to his feet and rushed down into the front hall, determined to make up for lost time, but at the bottom of the stairs, he was met with silence. Cursing softly, Wilde rushed through the deserted rooms of the crumbling house and the alleys outside, searching in desperation for the creature that he had come to find. He was met with desolation. Mr. Salad Monday had vanished, seemingly into the very woodwork itself.

Wilde finally returned to the Chief Inspector's office at the end of the day, still in a daze. He and Kendrick had searched every inch of the house-first on their own, and later with a squad of Legion soldiers from the local precinct house-but it had been of no use. They had confiscated the remaining typewriters, along with boxes of replacement keys and ribbon. There had been a limited attempt to catalogue the piles of broadsheets and books, but that had quickly been abandoned as an act of futility.

Wilde found Cerys behind her desk, glaring at a ma.s.s of paperwork that seemed to have grown rather than diminished since Wilde's departure. Wilde entered and softly closed the door. Cerys was busy selecting a cigarette from a battered tin case, and she did not look up as she motioned for Wilde to join her. The air was already thick with smoke and fragrances of half a dozen different blends; it went without saying that the ashtray was overflowing.

"Lavender?" Wilde asked, noting the smell of the smoking herbs. He set a bundle of fresh evening broadsheets down on the chair next to him. He had bought them before dinner, but in his agitation he had been unable to read them.

"I'm celebrating my funeral early," Cerys replied. "What's the word on Salad Monday? Is he a terrorist?"

"Chief, you won't believe what happened."

Cerys-who had her nose buried in a bundle of forms-looked up at him and took on one of her very particular expressions. "Max, stop. Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Chief?"

Cerys took out her pocket fire and lit a fresh cigarette, releasing a cloud of lavender-scented smoke. "I know that look on your face, and it tells me I sure as taxes don't want to know what just happened to you. All I want. . . no, all I need to know is whether Salad Monday is going to be a problem. Is he a terrorist?"

"Um. . . no."

Cerys flicked her pocket fire on and off as she continued her questioning. "Is he working for Slater?"

"No."

"Is he a threat to the city?"

"Well, I don't think so. But, Chief, he's not even-"

Cerys pointed a handful of papers at Wilde in a most menacing fashion. "Max, I've done this job long enough to know that when someone comes to me and says 'Chief, you'll never believe what I saw,' they're either lying or telling the truth. Either way, I don't want to know unnecessary details that will one day drive me to drink."

"You already drink."